Melick: Chris Todd's example makes it hard for others to quit

Auburn quarterback Chris Todd (12) looks to pass during the first practice session of the season at Auburn, Ala., Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009. (The Birmingham News/ Mark Almond)

What odds would you have given that Chris Todd would be named the starting quarterback this fall? Not at Auburn, but anywhere?

Probably no worse than the chance most people gave that the senior from Elizabethtown, Ky., who landed on The Plain by way of Hutchinson Community College and Texas Tech, would even be enrolled at Auburn for this school year.

After all, wasn't Todd former offensive coordinator Tony Franklin's "boy," little more than a hired gun brought in to run the Tony Franklin System?

We know how that worked out. The system went haywire. Franklin was fired in midseason. Head coach Tommy Tuberville left shortly thereafter.

So what was left for Todd? He'd been booed and benched. He had a dead arm that required surgery. A new coaching staff owed him nothing. The fan base, at least among the vocal ones, seemed not to care if it ever saw Todd in an Auburn uniform again.

Given all that had happened to him, plus the fact that he received his undergraduate degree, why is Todd even still on campus?

Because, said Franklin, "Above all, Chris is somebody that really loves the game."

Franklin, now offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee, remains in touch with his former protege.

"He's a competitor," Franklin said. "And he believes he's good enough to be the starting quarterback for anybody in the country."

The Auburn coaching staff spent a great deal of time Thursday praising former starter Kodi Burns for the way he handled the news that he'd not only been passed over at quarterback, but was being asked to move to a new position.

They talked about how tough it had to be for Burns to accept, about the class with which he handled the disappointment, about the speech he made to his teammates to try to make sure this decision didn't split the team.

Head coach Gene Chizik described him as "an Auburn man," willing to sacrifice his individual goals for the good of the team.

And rightly so. Given the "me first" attitude we've come to expect from college athletes -- particularly college quarterbacks -- it would not have been surprising if Burns had packed his bags and headed off to another school where he could play quarterback.

But then, how could Burns have done that, given the example Todd set during the past 10 months?

And why did Todd not leave?

"Because," Becky Todd remembers her son telling her, "I don't know what else to do except get up every morning and do what I do."

Give Chizik and his staff some credit in this, too. They said they came in with a clean slate, that every position was open. All coaches say that. How many really mean it?

"That has to make you feel good about Coach Chizik and (offensive coordinator) Gus Malzahn, from the standpoint they didn't have blinders on," Franklin said. "They went out, had a real competition, thought Chris was the best, and made a decision. To me, that speaks volumes about them as coaches."

Could those same 90,000 Auburn fans who booed Todd so unmercifully at times last year now come back to cheer him?

That would be vindication. But those who know Todd say that's not what this is about.

"I think Chris knew that the rest of his life would never feel complete if he did not make himself finish what he started," Franklin said. "He had to give himself a chance."